That is not to say we lack sympathy for those who were murdered in Paris.

Indeed, like everyone else, we are sickened by their slaughter and have no scintilla of support for those who answer the pen with the gun.

Nor is it to deny our French journalistic colleagues their right to publish what they did.

But we in Britain would not have published cartoons depicting, let alone poking fun at, Mohammed. Despite external pressures and deep editorial soul-searching, no mainstream newspaper has reproduced them.

Why should this be when we have a press that has long adopted a publish-and-be-damned philosophy?

We may recall that publishers and editors who were so hostile to the Leveson inquiry, and who then fought off state involvement in press regulation, were asserting their rights to hard-won freedoms.

It is a misunderstanding, however, to think they do not take care about what they publish. And, of all the subjects they are most cautious about, religion probably tops the list.

People who think those editors are being timid about offending Muslims are way off the mark. Similarly, those who seek to argue that they have been restrained by political correctness are also wrong.

Nor has this anything to do with Britain’s supposed emergence since the Second World War as a multicultural society.

I say “supposed” because this country has a long multicultural history in which, sometimes grudgingly and sometimes by legislation, it has created a society with respect at its heart.

Nowhere is this more obvious than over differences of religion. We don’t set out to be grossly offensive to people of other religions, even though many may think otherwise.

Despite accusations of Islamophobia, some of which are valid, no editor has seen fit to attack the religion’s prophet. I believe this unconscious religious tolerance in our society can be traced back to the eventual peaceful outcome of the reformation.

Despite the intense, bloody and lengthy struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in Britain, by the 18th century the two wings of Christianity were learning to live with each other. (Northern Ireland’s history has, of course, been very different.)

Protestant supremacy allowed for Catholics to have similar rights, and few if any newspapers of the late 19th century betray religious bigotry by one to the other.

What is undeniable is that there was plenty of casual anti-Semitism in newspapers, and that did not die out until after 1948.

Publishers and editors stopped publishing material that treated Jews as “the other”. It would be unthinkable now to publish the terrible slurs they were subjected to in early 20th century papers.

Muslims in Britain may be right in arguing that they do not get a fair press. But they should also know that this society is imbued with a religious broad-mindedness that would never allow for Charlie Hebdo-style journalism in Britain.

The circulation of the special post-massacre issue of the magazine in this country does not herald a change.

It is simply evidence of the way in which the terrorists have done a disservice to the religion they claimed to be fighting for.

Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London, and writes a blog for The Guardian